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Friday, December 25, 2015

The FAA announced the registration requirement earlier this month and launched the site on Monday, hoping to get up and running before the holiday rush. If you buy or receive a drone this holiday season, make sure you're flying it legally.

What happens if you don't register?
Criminal penalties for flying a drone without registering are up to three years in jail, or up to $250,000 in fines. The agency is unlikely to dedicate many resources into enforcing the registration rule at first. Local law enforcement will handle the bulk of enforcement for now.

Any other rules you should know?
Once you're registered, you can take your new drone out for a spin. As long as you follow all the rules. Most importantly, don't fly the drone above 400 feet (the height of a 30 to 40 story building), never let it out of your eyesight, and don't fly it near airports or populated areas like stadiums.

How do you register?
Registration is $5 for three years and can be done online at RegisterMyUAS.faa.gov. Drone owners give the FAA their full name, physical and mailing addresses, and an email address. The FAA is waiving the fee for one month. People who bought a drone before December 21 have until February 19 to register.

www­.housebeautiful­.com - America's national parks are anything but expected — and it's not all about amber waves of grain, people. Snowcapped mountains bathed in strawberry sunsets, towering redwood trees that make your ja...

explore­.fuzecast­.com - If you didn't already know, the U.S. Department of the Interior's Instagram account is a treasure trove of gorgeous nature photos from all across the country. As 2015 comes to a close, the Interior...

Saturday, December 19, 2015

First Day Hikes offered individuals and families an opportunity to begin the New Year rejuvenating and connecting with the outdoors by taking a free organized hike on January 1, 2016.

Looking for an invigorating opportunity to get outside and celebrate New Year's with your family and friends? Come join New Hampshire State parks and out partners with a rejuvenating family-friendly hike on New Years Day.

Visitors to First Day Hike can explore historic sites, state parks and even enjoy pet friendly hikes with their four footed friends either on their own or discover and experience nature with a guided hike lead by....

www­.ordnancesurvey­.co­.uk - If you're looking for some walking inspiration for 2016, take a look at our favourite walks from 2015 on the blog. Just bear in mind that these have been walked at all different times over the year...

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Today marks 48 years since Congress established the National Park Foundation. That’s 48 years we’ve dutifully served as the official charity of America’s national parks; 48 years we’ve proudly partnered with the National Park Service to ensure our national heritage remains protected, vibrant, and relevant now and in the future.

The National Park Service Centennial in 2016 will be not only an epic celebration of what’s been accomplished to date, but also a springboard for the next century for our national parks. It’s a critical moment for the national park community to come together and ensure all people recognize the importance of supporting these magnificent places.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Today we gaze through the windows of the past into one of the best preserved cliff dwellings in North America. This 20 room high-rise apartment, nestled into a towering limestone cliff, tells a story of ingenuity, survival and ultimately, prosperity in an unforgiving desert landscape.

Montezuma Castle National Monument protects a set of well-preserved Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings near the town of Camp Verde, Arizona, United States. The dwellings were built and used by the Sinagua people, a pre-Columbian culture closely related to the Hohokam and other indigenous peoples of the southwestern United States, between approximately 1100 and 1425 AD. The main structure comprises five stories and twenty rooms, and was built over the course of three centuries.

Neither part of the monument's name is correct. When European-Americans first observed the ruins in the 1860s, by then long-abandoned, they named them for the famous Aztec emperor Montezuma in the mistaken belief that he had been connected to their construction (see also Montezuma mythology). In fact, the dwelling was abandoned more than 40 years before Montezuma was born, and was not a "castle" in the traditional sense, but instead functioned more like a "prehistoric high rise apartment complex".

Several Hopi clans and Yavapai communities trace their ancestries to early immigrants from the Montezuma Castle/Beaver Creek area. Clan members periodically return to these ancestral homes for religious ceremonies.

Montezuma Well (Yavapai: ʼHakthkyayva or Ahagaskiaywa), a detached unit of Montezuma Castle National Monument, is a natural limestone sinkhole near the town of Rimrock, Arizona through which some 1,500,000 US gallons (5,700,000 L) of water emerge each day from an underground spring. It is located about 11 miles (18 km) northeast of Montezuma Castle.

The Well measures 386 feet (118 m) in diameter from rim to rim and contains a near-constant volume of spring water even in times of severe drought, amounting to approximately 15,000,000 US gallons (57,000,000 L). The water is highly carbonated and contains high levels of arsenic. At least five endemic species are found exclusively in Montezuma Well: a diatom, a springtail, a water scorpion, an amphipod, and a leech — the most endemic species in any spring in the southwestern United States. It is also home to the Montezuma Well springsnail.

Montezuma Well's steady outflow has been used for irrigation since the 8th century. Part of a prehistoric canal is preserved near the park's picnic ground, and portions of the canal's original route are still in use today.

As with Montezuma Castle, the label "Montezuma" is a misnomer: the Aztec emperor Montezuma had no connection to the site or the early indigenous peoples that occupied the area.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Part of Alaska's allure is melting. But it's not all bad news for the 49th state's glaciers. While most of the more than 100,000 glaciers in Alaska are thinning, retreating or stagnating, Johns Hopkins and Margerie glaciers are actually advancing, fed by abundant snowfall from the Fairweather Range.

These are just two of the icy wonders in the 3.3 million-acre Glacier Bay National Park in southeast Alaska. The last of the bay's four glacial periods began about 4,000 years ago, leaving today's glaciers in its wake.

Take a sea kayaking trip out of park headquarters at Bartlett Cove to get a closer look at these icy Alaskan phenomena, or see the wild expanse from above on a flight seeing expedition. If you're lucky, you'll see a moose or bear swimming across the bay.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

* January 18 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
* April 16 through 24 – National Park Week
* August 25 through 28 – National Park Service Birthday (and following weekend)
* September 24 – National Public Lands Day
* November 11 – Veterans Day

“Fee-free days provide an extra incentive to visit a national park, especially during next year’s centennial celebration,” said National Park Service Director Jon B. Jarvis. “We added extra fee-free days so that everyone has a chance to join the party. With locations in every state, finding a national park is easy. The hard part might be deciding which ones to visit.”

America The Beautiful - The National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass http://ow.ly/VOzuk

The average temperature on the summit is 26.5 degrees Fahrenheit (-3 C), winds average 35.3 miles per hour (56.8 kmh). The summit gets about 42 feet of snow per year, and typically sees snowfall every month of the year -- though it melts quickly in the summer.

In April 1934, the observatory recorded a 231-mile-per-hour (372 kmh) wind that remains a world record for a land-based weather station. Some of the observatory buildings are secured to the summit with chains to keep them from blowing away. Temperatures atop the mountain can drop as low as -47 degrees Fahrenheit (-44 C)

On the clearest days, observers can see as far as Mount Marcy in New York State, 134 miles to the west.

Just The Facts....1.The Mount Washington Cog Railway was the first mountain climbing cog railway in the world.2.The Mount Washington Cog Railway was created and designed by Sylvester Marsh of Campton, New Hampshire.3.The first locomotive, Old Peppersass, so named because it resembled an old pepper sauce bottle, reached the summit of Mount Washington on July 3, 1869. Today it is on display at the base station.4.Jacob's Ladder is the steepest section of the Cog's trestle, with a 37% grade. This means that there is an elevation difference of 13 feet between passengers in the front and back of the coach!5.Each trip to the summit on the Cog Railway uses 1 ton of coal, and 1,000 gallons of water.6.The Mount Washington Cog Railway was named a National Historic Engineering Landmark on June 26, 1976.7.Mount Washington is the highest summit in the northeastern part of the U.S. - elevation 6,288-feet.8.Darby Field of Exeter, New Hampshire, was the first man known to have reached the mighty summit of Mount Washington in 1642. Indian legend stated that the summit was home to the Great Spirit and death would come to any human who ascended the peak.9.The oldest building on the summit is the Tip Top House, built in 1853.10.The Lake of the Clouds is said to be the highest body of water in the eastern part of the United States.11.The average annual snowfall on the summit of Mount Washington is 177 inches.12.A continental ice sheet once covered Mount Washington, and there is permanently frozen ground just beneath the summit.13.The lowest recorded temperature at the summit was -49 degrees Fahrenheit; the highest was +74 degrees. The temperature on the summit falls below zero more than 65 days a year.14.The average annual wind velocity at the summit is 37 mph. The highest wind velocity ever recorded in the world was at the summit of Mount Washington in April 1934 - at 231 mph! (Source: The Mount Washington Cog Railway http://ow.ly/VO0mU)

Busy Day at the summit today it was "Race to the Top Bike Challenge" Road Race Day today. The oldest building on the summit is the Tip Top House, built in 1853

The Mount Washington Observatory has been staffed continuously since 1932, with the exception of a brief evacuation in February 2004 due to a fire.